HLU-20 Reso 26-129 RESOLUTION 26-129, REFERRING TO THE MAUI PLANNING COMMISSION PROPOSED BILLS TO AMEND THE KIHEI-MAKENA COMMUNITY PLAN AND WEST MAUI COMMUNITY PLAN, AND TO CHANGE THE ZONING FOR A-1 AND A-2 APARTMENT DISTRICT PROPERTIES IN THE SEA LEVEL RISE EXPOSURE AREA (HLU-20)
Re: HLU-20, Resolution 26-129 — Opposition and Request to File or Defer
I oppose Resolution 26-129 and respectfully ask the Committee to file it. If the Committee is unwilling to file it, the resolution should be deferred until every property owner seeking H-3 or H-4 zoning provides a complete, OWNER-FUNDED, parcel-specific land-use application and the County publicly accounts for who requested each property’s inclusion.
Resolution 26-129 is not merely a technical referral to the Maui Planning Commission. It is the next step in dismantling Bill 9 property by property before Bill 9 has even taken effect.
First, the Council passed Bill 9 and told the public that thousands of apartment-zoned transient vacation rentals would eventually be returned to residential use. Then, before the phaseout deadlines arrived and before the County could measure Bill 9’s actual housing, economic, or tax effects, the Council created the H-3 and H-4 districts. Now individual councilmembers are attempting to select which named properties will escape Bill 9 and retain economically valuable transient-rental rights.
That creates two classes of property owners: those who remain subject to Bill 9 and those who obtain a councilmember-sponsored pathway around it.
That is not uniform land-use planning. It is government choosing winners and losers.
Council Chair Lee and Councilmembers Cook and Sugimura proposed amendments adding named properties. All three voted against Bill 9, then voted to create H-3 and H-4, and supported the August 27 eligibility criteria. Their present actions are consistent with preserving transient-rental rights they previously opposed phasing out.
Chair Uʻu-Hodgins presents a different contradiction. She voted for Bill 9, introduced Resolution 26-129, proposed expanding it to Special Flood Hazard Areas, and voted for the broadened eligibility criteria. She is simultaneously supporting Bill 9 and constructing the mechanism through which selected properties can escape it. Councilmember Batangan supplied the fifth vote for the current criteria.
The sequence by which the criteria were developed should concern everyone.
The original resolution named eight properties before the Committee adopted any uniform eligibility standard. Planning information subsequently showed Kihei Bay Surf and Kihei Bay Vista with only partial SLR-XA parcel and building coverage. The Chair then proposed expanding the resolution to Special Flood Hazard Areas and expressly identified those two properties as the reason.
Councilmember Cook proposed replacing full exposure with “substantial” impact and adding properties subject to shoreline regulations. The Committee then selected 51% during deliberations. But the final standard also permits properties to qualify through shoreline regulation or Special Flood Hazard Area status, meaning the supposed 51% threshold does not actually control every property.
The rule did not clearly determine the properties. The rule evolved after properties had already been selected.
The Committee still has not clearly stated whether 51% means 51% of the parcel, building footprint, number of structures, habitable floor area, or essential infrastructure. It has not identified the controlling map version, measurement method, responsible certifier, or appeal process. Most importantly, no evidence establishes that 51% is a scientifically supported dividing line between appropriate residential and transient use.
The Planning Department did not recommend hotel zoning based upon this map. Its August 5 letter explained that the SLR-XA combines three different hazards: passive flooding, annual high-wave flooding, and erosion or land loss. Planning specifically warned that each property is affected differently and that individual parcels should be reviewed to understand their actual exposure.
A composite planning map is not an engineering report, structural assessment, evacuation plan, drainage analysis, or determination that visitor use is appropriate.
If a coastal property is too dangerous or vulnerable for residents, changing the occupants to tourists does not eliminate the danger. If the argument is that professionally managed visitor properties can respond differently to emergencies, then require proof of on-site management, evacuation capacity, structural condition, insurance, reserves, and a funded plan for eventual retreat or removal.
Historical brochures describing a property as a resort may help establish how it was marketed decades ago. They do not establish its remaining useful life, present structural condition, public benefit, environmental impact, or suitability for continuing occupancy in a known hazard area.
The process being used is also important.
The Charter legally permits the Council to initiate community-plan and zoning amendments. But legal authority does not make every use of that authority responsible.
In another recent Council-initiated rezoning, the Planning Department explained that this procedure differs substantially from an owner-initiated application. A Council-initiated change does not require the same Chapter 19.510 application, supporting studies, neighboring-property notification, direct agency review, or the environmental review that may accompany a private community-plan amendment. Planning warned that using this procedure for private development projects can significantly reduce impact analysis and community participation, while acknowledging that the Council has the legal power to do it.
That is exactly why heightened scrutiny is necessary here.
The property owners receive the potential economic benefit. Council staff and County agencies perform the work. The owners are not carrying the same application burden normally imposed upon a person requesting a valuable change in zoning.
The attached community-plan bill even states that the plan maps are being changed to provide the “necessary consistency” for the proposed zoning. In other words, the existing community plans do not support these hotel designations, so the Council proposes rewriting the plans for the selected properties.
That may be legally permissible. It is not evidence that the changes serve the public interest.
The Finance Department has provided no analysis showing additional tax revenue, changes in property value, effects on housing, or future public costs. Its response merely requests notification so the properties can be classified and assessed correctly. There is no fiscal record demonstrating what Maui receives in exchange for preserving these private transient-rental rights.
There is also an unavoidable political-access issue.
Named owners and associations have publicly requested inclusion. Councilmembers have responded with amendments identifying particular properties. Yet the public has not received a complete disclosure showing:
* Who first requested each property’s inclusion;
* When each councilmember or staff member was contacted;
* Which owners, association representatives, attorneys, lobbyists, Realtors, or industry organizations participated;
* What private meetings, calls, emails, or text messages occurred; and
* Whether any persons financially benefiting from these decisions provided campaign contributions, fundraising assistance, endorsements, or other political support.
I am not alleging an unlawful quid pro quo. I am saying the procedure predictably creates the appearance of political favoritism. Council created that appearance by providing named private properties with sponsor-written zoning amendments without first requiring ordinary applications and public disclosure.
The cure is transparency, not denial.
Bill 9 already divided Maui into opposing camps: residents against owners, housing against jobs, and neighborhoods against the visitor industry. Resolution 26-129 deepens that division by making the outcome depend upon which property secures political sponsorship.
Maui residents should not have to wonder whether the difference between one apartment property losing its transient-rental rights and another retaining them is objective evidence or political access.
I therefore ask the Committee to file Resolution 26-129.
If the Committee will not file it, please defer it until:
1. Every property submits an owner-funded, application-equivalent record;
2. The County publishes the identity of everyone who requested each property’s inclusion and all responsive communications;
3. Each property receives a separate public hearing, vote, and written findings;
5. Each property provides a funded hazard-mitigation, managed-retreat, removal, and site-restoration plan that does not transfer future costs to taxpayers;
6. The County quantifies the housing lost, transient use preserved, private economic benefit, projected tax revenue, and potential public liability; and
7. Bill 9 is given a meaningful opportunity to operate before the Council permanently exempts additional properties.
If Bill 9 was fundamentally mistaken, the Council should revisit it openly and uniformly.
If Bill 9 remains the County’s housing policy, the Council should stop hollowing it out through selective, councilmember-sponsored rezonings.
The Council should not publicly preserve Bill 9 while privately dismantling its effect one politically selected property at a time.
just repeal bill 9 and move on.
Aloha Chair and Members of the HLU Committee:
Re: HLU-20, Resolution 26-129 — Opposition and Request to File or Defer
I oppose Resolution 26-129 and respectfully ask the Committee to file it. If the Committee is unwilling to file it, the resolution should be deferred until every property owner seeking H-3 or H-4 zoning provides a complete, OWNER-FUNDED, parcel-specific land-use application and the County publicly accounts for who requested each property’s inclusion.
Resolution 26-129 is not merely a technical referral to the Maui Planning Commission. It is the next step in dismantling Bill 9 property by property before Bill 9 has even taken effect.
First, the Council passed Bill 9 and told the public that thousands of apartment-zoned transient vacation rentals would eventually be returned to residential use. Then, before the phaseout deadlines arrived and before the County could measure Bill 9’s actual housing, economic, or tax effects, the Council created the H-3 and H-4 districts. Now individual councilmembers are attempting to select which named properties will escape Bill 9 and retain economically valuable transient-rental rights.
That creates two classes of property owners: those who remain subject to Bill 9 and those who obtain a councilmember-sponsored pathway around it.
That is not uniform land-use planning. It is government choosing winners and losers.
Council Chair Lee and Councilmembers Cook and Sugimura proposed amendments adding named properties. All three voted against Bill 9, then voted to create H-3 and H-4, and supported the August 27 eligibility criteria. Their present actions are consistent with preserving transient-rental rights they previously opposed phasing out.
Chair Uʻu-Hodgins presents a different contradiction. She voted for Bill 9, introduced Resolution 26-129, proposed expanding it to Special Flood Hazard Areas, and voted for the broadened eligibility criteria. She is simultaneously supporting Bill 9 and constructing the mechanism through which selected properties can escape it. Councilmember Batangan supplied the fifth vote for the current criteria.
The sequence by which the criteria were developed should concern everyone.
The original resolution named eight properties before the Committee adopted any uniform eligibility standard. Planning information subsequently showed Kihei Bay Surf and Kihei Bay Vista with only partial SLR-XA parcel and building coverage. The Chair then proposed expanding the resolution to Special Flood Hazard Areas and expressly identified those two properties as the reason.
Councilmember Cook proposed replacing full exposure with “substantial” impact and adding properties subject to shoreline regulations. The Committee then selected 51% during deliberations. But the final standard also permits properties to qualify through shoreline regulation or Special Flood Hazard Area status, meaning the supposed 51% threshold does not actually control every property.
The rule did not clearly determine the properties. The rule evolved after properties had already been selected.
The Committee still has not clearly stated whether 51% means 51% of the parcel, building footprint, number of structures, habitable floor area, or essential infrastructure. It has not identified the controlling map version, measurement method, responsible certifier, or appeal process. Most importantly, no evidence establishes that 51% is a scientifically supported dividing line between appropriate residential and transient use.
The Planning Department did not recommend hotel zoning based upon this map. Its August 5 letter explained that the SLR-XA combines three different hazards: passive flooding, annual high-wave flooding, and erosion or land loss. Planning specifically warned that each property is affected differently and that individual parcels should be reviewed to understand their actual exposure.
A composite planning map is not an engineering report, structural assessment, evacuation plan, drainage analysis, or determination that visitor use is appropriate.
If a coastal property is too dangerous or vulnerable for residents, changing the occupants to tourists does not eliminate the danger. If the argument is that professionally managed visitor properties can respond differently to emergencies, then require proof of on-site management, evacuation capacity, structural condition, insurance, reserves, and a funded plan for eventual retreat or removal.
Historical brochures describing a property as a resort may help establish how it was marketed decades ago. They do not establish its remaining useful life, present structural condition, public benefit, environmental impact, or suitability for continuing occupancy in a known hazard area.
The process being used is also important.
The Charter legally permits the Council to initiate community-plan and zoning amendments. But legal authority does not make every use of that authority responsible.
In another recent Council-initiated rezoning, the Planning Department explained that this procedure differs substantially from an owner-initiated application. A Council-initiated change does not require the same Chapter 19.510 application, supporting studies, neighboring-property notification, direct agency review, or the environmental review that may accompany a private community-plan amendment. Planning warned that using this procedure for private development projects can significantly reduce impact analysis and community participation, while acknowledging that the Council has the legal power to do it.
That is exactly why heightened scrutiny is necessary here.
The property owners receive the potential economic benefit. Council staff and County agencies perform the work. The owners are not carrying the same application burden normally imposed upon a person requesting a valuable change in zoning.
The attached community-plan bill even states that the plan maps are being changed to provide the “necessary consistency” for the proposed zoning. In other words, the existing community plans do not support these hotel designations, so the Council proposes rewriting the plans for the selected properties.
That may be legally permissible. It is not evidence that the changes serve the public interest.
The Finance Department has provided no analysis showing additional tax revenue, changes in property value, effects on housing, or future public costs. Its response merely requests notification so the properties can be classified and assessed correctly. There is no fiscal record demonstrating what Maui receives in exchange for preserving these private transient-rental rights.
There is also an unavoidable political-access issue.
Named owners and associations have publicly requested inclusion. Councilmembers have responded with amendments identifying particular properties. Yet the public has not received a complete disclosure showing:
* Who first requested each property’s inclusion;
* When each councilmember or staff member was contacted;
* Which owners, association representatives, attorneys, lobbyists, Realtors, or industry organizations participated;
* What private meetings, calls, emails, or text messages occurred; and
* Whether any persons financially benefiting from these decisions provided campaign contributions, fundraising assistance, endorsements, or other political support.
I am not alleging an unlawful quid pro quo. I am saying the procedure predictably creates the appearance of political favoritism. Council created that appearance by providing named private properties with sponsor-written zoning amendments without first requiring ordinary applications and public disclosure.
The cure is transparency, not denial.
Bill 9 already divided Maui into opposing camps: residents against owners, housing against jobs, and neighborhoods against the visitor industry. Resolution 26-129 deepens that division by making the outcome depend upon which property secures political sponsorship.
Maui residents should not have to wonder whether the difference between one apartment property losing its transient-rental rights and another retaining them is objective evidence or political access.
I therefore ask the Committee to file Resolution 26-129.
If the Committee will not file it, please defer it until:
1. Every property submits an owner-funded, application-equivalent record;
2. The County publishes the identity of everyone who requested each property’s inclusion and all responsive communications;
3. Each property receives a separate public hearing, vote, and written findings;
4. Independent reports address structural condition, remaining useful life, flooding, erosion, drainage, wastewater, emergency access, insurance, reserves, and public shoreline impacts;
5. Each property provides a funded hazard-mitigation, managed-retreat, removal, and site-restoration plan that does not transfer future costs to taxpayers;
6. The County quantifies the housing lost, transient use preserved, private economic benefit, projected tax revenue, and potential public liability; and
7. Bill 9 is given a meaningful opportunity to operate before the Council permanently exempts additional properties.
If Bill 9 was fundamentally mistaken, the Council should revisit it openly and uniformly.
If Bill 9 remains the County’s housing policy, the Council should stop hollowing it out through selective, councilmember-sponsored rezonings.
The Council should not publicly preserve Bill 9 while privately dismantling its effect one politically selected property at a time.
Mahalo for your consideration.
Edward Codelia
Maui resident